


The Curse

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Based on a song, F/M, Ficlet, growing relationship, the curse- josh ritter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 08:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3802789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She asks, "are you cursed?"</p><p>He says, "I think that I'm cured."</p><p>A short piece of the growth of Nine and Rose's relationship based on the song by Josh Ritter called The Curse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curse

**Author's Note:**

> I legitimately don't know what this thing is except something that I wrote by hand on the back of an old powerpoint presentation while my computer had an hour-long temper tantrum at work today. I've been meaning to write something based on this song for a long time and... well... I suppose this is it.
> 
> Thank you for reading whatever it is!

The first time he sees her, it’s as though he has opened his eyes for the first time in centuries.  She is as beautiful and shining as the sun rising over the rivers and mountains of the home that it’s nearly not too painful to think about now.

“Who are you?” she asks, and he doesn’t know what to tell her.

An ancient creature of time and starlight, traveling the universe, constantly wandering because he has no home left to go to.

“I’m the Doctor.”

She hasn’t been with him long before she works it out.  Nine hundred years and he doesn’t look more than 40, and she’s 19 and looks older every day, constantly changing as humans do- hair and clothes and makeup, but also inside.  She changes and he doesn’t.

She asks, “are you cursed?”

He doesn’t know what to tell her.  He’d never thought so before.  Always, as those he loved died around him, it was the universe he had believed cursed.

He won’t let it happen to her, however.

He says, “I think that I’m cured.”

Then, as he often does, he distracts her with words.  He tells her about ancient Egypt on her own planet and the glass pyramid of San Kloon and she allows it because he smiles and she loves his smile.

He knows she loves him and she knows that he knows and he knows that she knows and they spin around each other in a dance that everyone can see.

“It doesn’t feel like dancing,” she tells him, once, on a day when everyone lives.

So he shows her what dancing feels like.  He swears that it isn’t to show up the new bloke on the bus but it is and when she cries out under him in the dark, he hopes that Jack Flash is listening.

They lay in the dark and sleep and when he wakes up screaming she is there and he tells her everything.  He tells her of death and fire and carnage and destruction.  He tells her of loneliness and the dark, empty places in the universe.

She lays at his side and she doesn’t pull away, though he expects her to.

He tells her of other humans who have traveled with him who have died at his side.

She asks, “are you cursed?”

He draws her toward him, taking her again, driving her to the heights of pleasure where everything is forgotten and his answer is obscured in her gasps and his moans.

Then the day comes when he can’t protect her anymore and she is gone.  Unlike before he knows better than to curse the universe, for it is he who is cursed and nothing can heal the breach that her death has made in his heart.

But then, like the sun she rises and he knows that he can’t lose her again to the dark.  He lies to her for the first time and sends her away to safety- away from him, leaving him alone in the cold.  He knows he will not freeze because his sun is still shining somewhere in the universe.

Once again she returns to him, and he should long since have learned not to underestimate her, and she saves his life once again with her golden fire.  She will die this time, he knows, and he can do nothing to save her.

She asks, “are you cursed?”

And he knows.  Knows how to keep her light blazing.

He says, “I think that I’m cured.”

Then he kisses her and knows that she’ll forget that question. 


End file.
